Jeff Bezos' rocket company just made a significant step toward lowering the cost of access to space

Blue Origin, the rocket company owned by Amazon founder and CEO
Jeff Bezos, has signed Eutelsat Communications SA as its first
customer for satellite launch services, Bezos announced March 7.

Blue Origin is developing a reusable orbital rocket called
New Glenn that is expected to debut before the end of the
decade.

The satellite launch industry is difficult to break into, given
the high costs, big stakes, and well-established competition, so
the contract is a huge win for Blue Origin — a relative new kid
on the block. The deal might also inspire other companies to
consider launching with Bezos.

"We couldn't hope for a better first partner," Bezos said during
a keynote address at the Satellite 2017 conference.

The target date for the first launch is around 2021, Eutelsat CEO
Rodolphe Belmer said.

New Glenn is a follow-up program to Blue Origin's suborbital
New Shepard launch system, a rocket and capsule designed to
fly payloads and passengers to about 62 miles above the planet.

Test flights with onboard crew members are expected to begin this
year. Blue Origin has not yet set a price for
rides.

Like New Shepard, the New Glenn booster is designed to fly itself
back to Earth so it can be recovered and reflown, significantly
lowering costs. Tech billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX also
favors
this approach with its Falcon 9 and much-larger
Falcon Heavy launch system.

If each company can safely and reliably recycle their rocket
boosters — right now, most are simply dumped into the ocean as
trash — major satellite outfits like Eutelsat could save tens of
millions of dollars per launch.

Meanwhile, Blue Origin, SpaceX, and others could disrupt a
decades-old industry and lower the cost of access to space for
everyone.

The document calls for a spacecraft called "Blue Moon" to make
Amazon.com-like package deliveries to the lunar surface starting
in mid-2020 (followed by crewed landings).

"It is time for America to return to the Moon — this time to
stay," he told Christian Davenport of The Washington Post. "A
permanently inhabited lunar settlement is a difficult and worthy
objective. I sense a lot of people are excited about this."

Disclosure: Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post and is an
investor in Business Insider through his personal investment
company Bezos Expeditions.